Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-21
SUNDAY AUGUST sI, 1881.
ssBy way of n Contrast,

ssBy Way of n Contrast.
Among the "on dts" of personal
character the HERALD pleasantly
noticed on Friday the visit of a gentle
man Just from the East, whose ex-
periepce with the weather there was
far from fascinating" Rather mild
way OF recording an experience that
in the memory of the observer in Cal
ifornia for over twenty years, and en-
bracing in his wanderings and pur-
view of his observation and knowl-
edge, Oregon and California-the
sea- board, middle and mountain
districts, its northern, central and
tropical sections-has had no equal,
no approach to an equal, or even a
rational suggestion of counter
part, even in the face of the
fact that he recalls the thermometer
standing, with fire in its eye" in
Napa valley and in Lake county at l15
degrees in the shade from 10 O'Clock
in the morning until O'Clock in TIE
afternoon!
If he reached the East from Califor-
mia any time near the middle OF June,
Just before the horrid humid wave of
heat which was then slowly incubating
in the lmitless plains or prairies of the
Missouri or the Mississippi, or in
deeper and hotter regions, and which,
i'm very close agreement, Mirabile
dictu" with the period outlined by the
famous weather seers scattered at
various stations all over the national
domain, fell with devilish force
and persistent malignancy upon
our Eastern seaboard and upon
a vast territory reaching from Maine
to Florida and from Boston, New
York and Baltimore in the East to
Chicago, st. Louis and New Orleans,
and which, from the beginning OF the
fourth week in June until the middle
of August, in no wise, night or dav,
abated in violence, this supernatural
heat, intensified by humidity un-
known before in the meteorological
record of the East, bringing with their
baleful presence and still more deadly
union an unparalleled mortality
among children, especially the chill
dren OF the poor, the wretched ill-fed,
ill-treated, Unprotected infants and ga
minis of the tenement "quarter" of all
our large eastern and western
cities, an unequaled and fear
full prevalence of sunstroke
among men, women, children and
animals whose lives exposed them in
any way to such casualties, the fatal
symptoms of which. frequently post
poned until after sunset, long after
sunset, even to midnight, when in
other seasons and in other countries
the dangers of blood fermentation, the
legitimate outgrowth OF this frightful
humid heat were ordinarily supposed
to be over, at least until the IN orrow,
and where the diagnosis of the alarm
ing condition, never at any time easy,
but which rapidly and properly made
might have suggested to scientific
men treatment leading to favorable
results, swarmed with difficult
ties, obscurities and delays by
its advent under peculiar circum-
stances or its appearance out of sea-
son, and out OF reason, too, with
such series of observation in his
possession he has the factors of con-
trast sufficiently potential to make it
attractive; to make the difference be-
tween the East and California; the
difference between light and darkness;
the difference between pain and
pleasure the difference between
heaven and hell. We trust we may
use these expressions for purposes of
fidelity and force in description with
out provoking suspicion Of profane
Tenderness or blasphemous impulses
on the part of the observer.
More than this, there was the wide
spread-almost niversal--visitation of
quenchless fires on the prairies and in
the limitless forests Of the far West
leaving in their wake only the ruins
of prosperous towns, the ashes of
fruitful and beautiful farms and homes,
the indescribable drought, the failure
of springs and wells that never before
refused to send up to the surface their
cool, plentiful volumes of pure,
healthy water to quench the thirst of
man and beast and give to the trees,
the vines and crops all the water that
was necessary for the continuance of
their growth and the perfections Of
yieldings, the death Of numberless
cattle for want of food and men for
water; the shrivelling and drying up
Il immense tracts OF corn and wheat
nd cats, offering new elements of